Dead, banished, lapsed, or exhausted—so it came to pass that all the original missionaries were weeded out, except Francis and Edith Welles, who remained at Matavai Bay. They learned Tahitian and lived without comforts. In their early years, Edith bore the first of their girls—Eleanor, Helen, and Laura—who each died, one after another, in infancy. Still, the Welleses would not relent. They built their little church, largely by themselves. The Reverend Welles figured out how to make whitewash out of bleached coral, by baking it in a rudimentary kiln until it powdered. This made the church look more inviting. He made bellows out of goatskin and bamboo. He attempted to plant a garden with sad, damp, English seeds. (“After three years of effort, we finally managed to produce one strawberry,” he told Alma, “and we divided it between ourselves, Mrs. Welles and I. The taste of it was enough to make my good wife weep. I have never managed to grow another one since. Though I have been fairly lucky, at times, with cabbage!”) He acquired, and subsequently lost to theft, a herd of four cows. He attempted to grow coffee and tobacco, and failed. Likewise potatoes, wheat, and grapes. The pigs of the mission did well, but no other livestock took to the climate.
Mrs. Welles taught English to the natives of Matavai Bay, whom she found to be quick and clever with language. She taught dozens of local children to read and write. Some of the children moved in with the Welleses. There was a little boy who progressed—in the space of eighteen months—from absolute illiteracy to the ability to read the New Testament without stumbling over a single word, but the boy did not become a Christian. None of them did.
The Reverend Welles told Alma, “They often asked me, the Tahitians, What is the proof of your god? They wanted me to speak of miracles, Sister Whittaker. They wanted evidence of boons for the deserving, you see, or punishments administered to the guilty. I had a man with a missing leg ask me to please instruct my god to grow him a new leg. I told him, ‘Where can I find you a new leg, in this country or any other?’ Ha-ha-ha! I could not make miracles, you see, so they were not much impressed. I watched a young Tahitian boy stand at the grave of his infant sister and ask, ‘Why did God Jesus plant my sister in the ground?’ He wanted me to instruct God Jesus to raise that child up from death—but I could not even raise up my own children from death, you see, so how could I perform such a marvel? I could offer no evidence of my savior, Sister Whittaker, but that which my good wife Mrs. Welles calls my ‘internal evidence.’ I knew then and I know now only what my heart feels to be true, you see—that without the love of our Lord, I am a wretch. This is the only miracle I can evidence, and sufficient miracle it remains for me. For others, perhaps it is not sufficient. I can scarcely fault them, for they cannot see into my heart. They cannot see the darkness that was once there, nor can they see what has replaced it. But to this day, it is the only miracle I have to offer, you see, and it is a humble one.”
Also, Alma learned, there was much confusion amid the natives as to what sort of god this was—the god of the Englishman—and where did that god live? For a long while, the natives at Matavai Bay believed that the Bible Reverend Welles carried was, in fact, his god. “They found it most disturbing that I carried my god so casually tucked under my arm, or that I left my god sitting unattended on the table, or that sometimes I lent my god to others! I tried to explain to them that my god was everywhere, you see. They wanted to know, ‘Then why can we not see him?’ I said, ‘Because my god is invisible,’ and they said, ‘Then how do you not trip over your god?’ and I said, ‘Verily, my friends, sometimes I do!’”
The London Missionary Society sent nothing in the way of assistance. For nearly ten years, the Reverend Welles did not hear from London at all—no instructions, no aid, no encouragement. He took his religion into his own hands. For one thing, he commenced with baptizing anyone who wanted to be baptized. This was much at odds with the guidelines of the London Missionary Society, which insisted that nobody receive baptism until it was quite certain they had renounced their old idols and embraced the True Redeemer. But the Tahitians wanted to be baptized, because it was so entertaining—while at the same time wishing to maintain their old beliefs. The Reverend Welles relented. He baptized hundreds of nonbelievers, and half-believers, too.
“Who am I to stop a man from receiving baptism?” he asked, to Alma’s amazement. “Mrs. Welles did not approve, I must say. She believed that potential Christians should be put to the strictest test of sincerity before baptism, you see. But to me, this felt like an Inquisition! She often reminded me that our colleagues in London wished us to enforce a uniformity of faith. But there does not even exist a uniformity of faith between me and Mrs. Welles! As I frequently said to my good wife, ‘Dear Edith, did we come all this great distance only to become Spaniards?’ If a man wants a dunking in the river, I shall give him a dunking in the river! If a man is ever to come to the Lord, you see, it shall be through the will of the Lord—not through anything that I do or do not do. So what is the harm of a baptism? The man comes out of the river a bit cleaner than he went in, and perhaps a bit closer to heaven, too.”
In some cases, the Reverend Welles confessed, he baptized people several times a year, or dozens of times in a row. He simply could not see the harm in it.
Over the next few years, the Welleses had two more daughters: Penelope and Theodosia. They, too, died in infancy, and were laid to rest on the hill, beside their sisters.
New missionaries arrived in Tahiti. They tended to stay away from Matavai Bay, and from the Reverend Welles’s dangerously liberal notions. These new missionaries were firmer with the natives. They established codes of law against adultery and polygamy, against trespass, Sabbath-breaking, theft, infanticide, and Roman Catholicism. Meanwhile, Francis Welles drifted even further from orthodox missionary practices. In 1810, he translated his Bible into Tahitian without first securing approval from London. “I did not translate the entire Bible, you see, but only the bits I thought the Tahitians might enjoy. My version is far briefer than the Bible with which you are familiar, Sister Whittaker. I left out any mention of Satan, for instance. I’ve come to feel it is best not to discuss Satan overtly, you see, for the more the Tahitians hear about the Prince of Darkness, the more respect and intrigue they feel toward him. I have seen a young married woman kneeling in my own church, praying most earnestly for Satan to please send her a boy as her firstborn. When I tried to correct her from this sad direction, she said, ‘But I wish to earn the favor of the one god whom all the Christians fear!’ So I desist from discussing Satan anymore. One must be adaptive, Miss Whittaker. One must be adaptive!”
The London Missionary Society eventually heard about these adaptations and, much displeased, sent word that the Welleses were to stop preaching and return home to England immediately. But the London Missionary Society was quite on the other side of the world, so how could they enforce anything? Meanwhile, the Reverend Welles already had stopped preaching, and was allowing the woman named Sister Manu to deliver sermons, despite the fact that she had not yet quite renounced all her other gods. But she liked Jesus Christ, and she spoke of him most eloquently. News of this angered London further.
“But I simply cannot answer to the London Missionary Society,” he told Alma, almost apologetically. “Their law is left behind in England, you see. They have no idea how things are. Here, I can answer only to the Author of all our mercies, and I have always believed that the Author of all our mercies is fond of Sister Manu.”